THE 500

 

So, I’ve started a blog, I guess. It’ll be weekly (ok, looks no set schedule is more realistic), and will always be 500 words (I promise). It’ll largely be my perspectives on being a one person design/publishing entity. Most things will be light, some won’t. I hope to inject some of the non-gaming influences that drive my design and publishing processes. Each week there will be a music link to an album that is on rotation while I’m working - I don’t work unless I’m listening to music.

 

This blog-thing is a creative requirement I’ve set for myself; both to write and create more, but also to set a personal standard to reach each week. It’s also an excuse to help train myself out of two spaces after each period. Finally, it’s an attempt to put myself out there a bit more.

 

Thank you for reading!

 

John

​

PS: If you want to know when a new 500 goes live, make sure you're signed up for the SBG mailing list.

 

......................................................................................................................................................

 

The 500 x10 - New Year

​​​

With the old year in the rearview and a new year on the horizon; potentially free of the stuff that helped to make 2024 a pretty trying year for me and Small Box Games, I wrestled with what I wanted to write about for the last entry of the year.

​

Art versus illustration versus graphic design and how those are perceived, consumed, and applied in games

The implications of growth in the industry and the decline in reading comprehension

Designing games for competition first and socializing second

​

These were all things I’d planned to write about this year, and all seem too heavy for this year’s final entry in The 500. Trying to pick a topic also made me realize that I don’t enjoy this venture as much as I wanted to.

 

Writing The 500 helped to solidify some back of the brain ideas about games that I’ve been trying to work out for a while; that was a great thing. I only add a single space after a period now, so now my prematurely gray beard can date me instead of my typographical habits. As it turns out, the conversations about two spaces versus one space after a period thing might have been the most interesting insight to come out of this whole venture, which is kind of weird. But, writing these entries ultimately reinforced some things I knew about myself and how I create. I make because I have a desire to do so, not because I have to.

 

Adding a quota to The 500 killed it for me. Having to do it made it a chore, instead of the slightly creative and reflective thing I’d wanted it to be. It ended up feeling like just another box I had to check to prove I was doing what I needed to be doing. Instead of driving me to connect more and create more, it made me pull back a bit from the whole point of SBG: making games.

 

It felt like I trapped myself in a loop:

I can’t announce new games because I haven’t posted a new The 500.

I can’t post a new The 500 because I don’t have any new games to talk about.

 

For nearly two months I’ve been avoiding my self-imposed deadlines, and as an unintended result, I’ve avoiding talking about the games I’m working on. That, along with the year wrapping up, gave me an opportunity to really look at, and consider, what the future of SBG looks like. I feel optimistic about the New Year in a way I didn’t think I would.

 

I started writing The 500 with the notion of growing Small Box Games. And yes, I would like to grow. I’d like more people to play my games, to talk about my games, to enjoy my games. But it doesn’t feel like the right time to force growth. It feels like the right time to concentrate; to draw in, compress, and densify what I do love about SBG.

​​

Music for the Week: Widowspeak- Plum [Full Album]

​

......................................................................................................................................................

 

The 500 x09 - Crooked Rookery

​​

A few weeks ago, I got to do something I’ve never successfully done before: I played a SBG game with my parents. Even though they’ve never quite understood what I do, they’ve always been supportive; and that’s all that ever really mattered. Playing COIN with Liz and my folks ended up being one of the highlights of a weird year.

 

I didn’t grow up playing games. Well, not tabletop games. As an only child, I played plenty of video games. As an overweight kid of a sports-enthusiast mom, I was always involved, usually begrudgingly, in some sort of sport. Sit-down games with the family wasn’t something we did; aside from the one time pops played Battle Masters with me thirty-something years ago.

 

My parents played plenty of games without me. From Rook with my aunt and uncle, Skip-BO with their friends, bowling or golf with their contemporaries, or Murder with my grandparents before I existed; my parents played plenty of games. Even though I wasn’t a part of my parents’ gaming exploits as a kid, the first time I got to play Rook with them as an adult was much more than just playing a game with my folks; it was the passing on of familial knowledge.

 

See, pops and my Uncle Terry were always Rook partners. I adored my Uncle Terry. He died when I was 14, even after my mom gave him a kidney. One of the few times I’ve ever seen my dad cry was at my uncle’s funeral; when he read a letter that my uncle left for my mom, thanking her for her sacrifice, and saying how excited he was to see me grow. It’s just one of those moments that’s burned into my memory. While my pops broke cycles; he still isn’t much of a crier.

 

Part of playing Rook in my family is cheating; mainly in letting your partner know when you have the Rook card in your hand for betting purposes. The first time I played Rook with my parents, pops shared his and my Uncle Terry’s secret tell for when one of them had the Rook card. It was simple. It was elegant. It is a secret that I’ll take to my grave.

 

The design process that lead to Lucre/COIN was largely an accident; a series of design reductions to a text-heavy, four player design that simplified into the trick taking game that became Lucre/COIN. I wasn’t thinking of Rook, even though Rook with my parents is pretty much the only experience I’ve had with trick-takers. Hell, I don’t even design games to be social things; games are competitions. Still, I’m fortunate to have my parents in my life; the older I get, the more I realize how rare that is. I don’t think I’ll have a deeper connection playing any game than I had with my dad when he shared my uncle and his secret tell for Rook, but playing COIN with my parents and Liz came pretty damned close.

​

Music for the Week: Hater - You Tried [Full LP]

​

......................................................................................................................................................

 

The 500 x08 - Duke; Waiting

​

This year has been my official Year of Waiting. It just feels like I’ve just been in a constant, unending state of waiting; both in my personal life and for games. Waiting for manufacturers. Waiting for illustrations. Waiting for playtest schedules. Waiting to not do too much at once. Waiting to be noticed. A lot of making games is waiting, as is a large portion of life. I know this. It’s still a hard circle to square for someone with very little patience.

 

Waiting on yourself is one thing. Waiting on the world around you is another. You can’t often control either. This has been a weird year. If you’ve been following along, that’s not a new sentiment. A big part of that weirdness was finding out Duke (our pug) had cancer in May. Aside from everything else going on; it’s been a lot of waiting. Waiting for good news. Waiting for hope to do its thing. Waiting for the dreaded “it’s time.”

 

I found Duke (or he found me) in a parking lot in January 2016. He looked up at me, hopped in my truck, and was our dog. He’d been on his own for a while. He wasn’t in great shape. He ended up being the little brother I never wanted. He saved me. You’ve probably seen some take of the “who saved who” bumper sticker. But really, that dog pulled me out of a personal spiral.

 

The past few days have been surreal. I was supposed to start packing games yesterday, but Duke had a really rough night the day before. Everything else went back to waiting. Waiting for Liz to get home. Waiting to see if Duke got better. Waiting for the sedative to set in so that Duke could slip into twilight; away from the pain of the cancer. Waiting for a home without Duke to feel full again after he passed. I don’t think it ever will.

 

I set a deadline for myself the day before things went wrong. I know I can’t hit that deadline. I don’t like to fail; I don’t like making anyone else wait for me. But, that’s where we are. Waiting.

​

I usually end these things with music for the week. That music doesn’t have anything to do with the accompanying 500; it’s just music that I enjoy and can hopefully share with people who maybe otherwise wouldn’t know about it. This week is different. I hate this song. When I waited tables twenty years ago, when this song came on the restaurant’s satellite radio station, I always had to go to the bathroom and wait until it was over. I don’t know the words. I don’t know what it’s about. I only know that it’s the saddest song I’ve ever heard; it always brings me down. I listened to it tonight. Sometimes, sadness just wants you to be as sad as you can be. Sometimes, that helps you to not be as sad. Sometimes, sadness just can’t wait.

​

Music for the Week: Bob Seger - Still The Same

​

......................................................................................................................................................

 

The 500 x07 - Dollar Bawler

 

There aren’t a whole lot of movies that speak to me past an entertainment level, but there are a handful: Chef, Interstellar, Silver Linings Playbook, Arrival, I Love You Man, Moneyball. Arguably, these films may not be the best examples of cinema, or even what I’d count among my favorites. But, each of these resonates with me on a personal level, each for different reasons. I could focus on each movie in their own right, but I’m looking at Moneyball; it feels the most topical.

 

Moneyball is a movie based on a book, that’s based on the real life of Billy Beane (a professional baseball player turned team management) who, with some help, used math and statistics to break professional baseball in the early 2000s. I’ve never read the book, so I don’t know how true-to-life the film adaptation is, but I sure as hell enjoy it. “The first guy through the wall always gets bloodied” is a quote from this movie. It doesn’t sum up the entire story arc of the film, but it does nail its theme succinctly. And this succinctly resonates with me.

 

Recently (ok, weeks ago at this point), a card game about battling over 3 lanes was covered by one of the most influential tabletop critics: Dan Thurot. The same game was soon after covered by one of the most popular tabletop YouTube channels, and thus, rocketed into the board gaming zeitgeist. A game that’s a riff on lane battlers that came before it. Omen came out in 2011; 13 years ago. That was before anyone cared about smashing things upwards, or what happened on air, land, or sea. It predated those radical landscapes, and existed before people marveled at snapping things on their phones. I’m not saying I invented lane battling card games; Knizia’s cared about lanes since at least 1999, long before the denotation existed. But I don’t know of anyone who pared the subgenre down to 3 lanes before Omen; a guideline that other games in the same space have since implemented. Games that I didn’t have anything to do with.

 

I’m not a trailblazer; I’m too small to blaze trails. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting sometimes when it feels like things I did first are picked up and taken somewhere else, to more success, by someone else. The board game industry space is like that. There are a lot of consumer-creators and a lot of their output is the tabletop equivalent of fanfic writing.

 

I don’t mingle with other designers/publishers. I don’t play a lot of new games. There’s a reason for this; I don’t want to ever be the reason another designer feels the same way that I often do. With tariffs a real possibility in the near future, I wonder how many companies will act like they’re the first through the wall; taking a hit making games domestically. I’m sure they’ll get praise, because they’re bigger. Even though I’ve been doing this shit my way, domestically, since 2007.

​

Music for the Week: Lunar Vacation - The Lunar Vacation EPs (Full EP)

​

......................................................................................................................................................

 

The 500 x06 - Around Toying

 

I love miniatures. I mean, I love my minis. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’m really into kitbashing and painting weird Inq28/Blanchitsu stuff. I love it. While I’m excited to get back to my warhammin’ bench, I know that without the anchoring of a game system, they’re just models. Maybe even just toys.

 

Still, it’s an artistic outlet for me; there’s creativity. The making is the point. I love looking at kits and wondering what I could do with them, hunting for bits, and blue-tacking ideas together way more than I like painting or playing. 40K’s an ok game, but the making is so much better than the playing.

 

I don’t get Lego kits or jigsaw puzzles. I don’t get buying a miniature just to build and paint it to look like the box image. I know plenty of people do; this isn’t a yum-yucking thing. They’re activities; something to complete. It’s like painting by numbers or adult coloring books; they provide satisfaction to some people. Still, they’re all examples where the doing is the point. I don’t get miniatures in board games. From the consumer side, I’m just not the target audience.

 

The publisher side? I completely get it. Tapping into the toy factor is low hanging fruit. Putting miniatures in board games is lazy. I know there’s a ton that goes into creating miniatures; both from the sculptor and the publisher. What I’m saying is that it’s a lot more difficult to evocatively convey a concept through a wooden shape; Root and The Old King’s Crown are the best in class examples of this. And I’m also not saying that miniatures have no place in board games. Sometimes they make sense; possibly even adding to the game’s mechanics. Yes, there’s the rare game where it’s clear that the game is a toy and the toy is the point (whether or not all games are toys is a discussion for another day – spoiler: they’re not). What I’m talking about is games that use miniatures for no other reason than to increase crowdfunding visibility. Kickstarter is flooded with them.

 

Toys (Miniatures) in games have created a crowdfunding environment that’s difficult to navigate; both for creators and consumers. How much stuff does a publisher need to add to a game in order to raise the price of the game to be able to pay for the paid content required to sell the game? It just feels so circular. Yeah, I get it, backers might get more stuff. But does more stuff actually equate to more value, or does it just increase the cost?

 

I know I’m picking on miniatures a bit, mainly because they’re an easy target (endless expansion unlock stuff is almost equally to blame). And yes, I know there have been slam dunk, big projects that didn’t lean on pounds of shitty, soft plastic; but they’re few and far between. I don’t make toys, so it sucks to compete with toy companies in a game space.

​

Music for the Week: Palomino - Light Came On

......................................................................................................................................................

 

The 500 x05 - BGG Gratings

 

BGG (boardgamegeek.com – the largest hobby gaming site) ratings are extremely important to me, a small publisher. I also know there are people who think they’re meaningless. I want them to matter a bit more to most people. Since lists are hot, here are my top 5 ways to make BGG ratings better.

​

1. Games are rated on a 1-5 scale. You know, just like almost every other modern site on the planet that offers a rating system. BGG’s current ratings guidelines are too open to interpretation or manipulation. It’s difficult for smaller publishers who will almost never get enough ratings to offset low ratings or BGG's internal averaging algorithm. That’s not even taking into account the BGG users who craft their own esoteric rating systems.

 

2. New users cannot rate games. If ratings matter, then allowing people to make an account and drop 1s and 10s on their first login, really shouldn’t be a thing. For a site that cares a whole lot about moderation in their forums, allowing this to occur (something with actual real life consequences), is kind of a weird move.

 

3. Games cannot be rated until they’ve been released. When a game is added to the BGG database, one of the things that must be filled out is the game’s release date. Using the current BGG rating system as a way to highlight excitement or bad actors is an easy-to-use and effective tool, I get it. There are plenty of other places to highlight those kinds of things. There aren’t a whole lot of other places to rate tabletop games, and none with the reach of BGG.

 

4. Game Publishers or Game Designers can’t rate games. At best it’s tacky, at worst it’s gross. Checking out a designer and seeing that they’ve given shitty ratings to other people’s games is just, well, shitty. It’s almost as bad as seeing people rate their own games a 10. I understand; the tabletop industry is largely comprised of people who play games. I know it’s not as simple as the spectator/participant dichotomy (Ok, I do think it’s that simple), but BGG is pretty much the only place to rate games. There are other avenues to talk yourself up or take a dump on your competition.

 

5. Verified Ratings. I don’t think you should have to own a game to be able to rate it, but I do think actually playing a game should be a prerequisite to leaving a rating. All of the above stuff would be pretty easy to implement. This one would be tougher, if not impossible. But would it be that difficult to require raters to also log a play?

 

None of this is going to happen, I know that. I also know that those changes would probably be better for smaller publishers than it would larger ones. I’m lucky that there are people who play and rate my games; I want their ratings to matter. Currently, I completely understand why some think ratings are worthless.

​

Music for the Week: Nature TV - EP 1 [FULL]

......................................................................................................................................................

​

The 500 x04 - Wanting Pariahs

I wanted to write a designer diary. You know, the thing where I walk through the sketches, spreadsheets, and light bulb moments? Then realized I didn’t want to write a designer diary. I take terrible notes. Pariahs started out like most of my games: a collision of ideas forming into something more than a sum of its parts. Unused parts were stored away for use another time, or deleted from a spreadsheet forever. Instead of writing about the how, I wanted to write about what I wanted Pariahs to be.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot this year about why I make games. I don’t know what’s different now; it feels a lot like the last few years for designing. Is that what made it seem different; reality finally setting in? In hindsight, the game that would become Pariahs was me working some of that out.

 

I wanted to make something completely new; something bigger. I mean, still small by industry standards, but big to me. A game that used mechanics I was comfortable designing with and mechanics people in hobby gaming™ were familiar with; combining them into something that felt both familiar and foreign. I wanted to make an inexpensive, small footprint card game that looked big on the table and felt like a game that should have cubes to convert and a board.

 

So I took a setting I’d been saving (far future religious/political elections), and worked on taking those ideas and making them fit together. I knew it wouldn’t be a commercial success; none of my games will ever be that. That didn’t stop me from wanting it to be my idea of success.

 

I wanted a game that wouldn’t stand in Omen’s shadow. Not because I thought it was better than the game that many consider my best, but because it stood in a completely different light. I wanted it to be its own game.

 

I wanted a lot from Pariahs, so I put a lot in. I got a lot out. I don’t like weighing my games against each other. Some are less work than others, because I’m not designing every game for the same reason. I don’t expect identical things from individual design. Pariahs gave me what I wanted out of it. Were it a turnip, I would’ve seen watery red.

 

Under promise and over deliver. I try my best not to oversell my excitement for my games. I’m proud of everything I put out in the world for one reason or another. Yeah, not all of them land like I’d like, but that’s the nature of creating. I’m excited for Pariahs. I think it sets a new standard, not just for me, but for what people expect from my games. I’ll be surprised if Pariahs doesn’t become some people’s favorite SBG game.

 

Pariahs was more than I expected. It was the game I needed it to be. It made me question my place in games. It made me question Kickstarter. I’m thankful for it.

​

Music for the Week: Tokyo Tea Room - No Future Plans (Full EP)

​​​

​......................................................................................................................................................

​

The 500 x03 - Shadow Boxing

For a company called Small Box Games, you’d figure boxes would be easy. They’re not. They’re the most difficult (and potentially most expensive) thing for making games domestically at the scale I’m making games.

 

I don’t make games that compete for space, or attention, on a retailer’s shelf. I have no reason to sell air; I try to offer as little air as possible. Affordable and small; that's what I care about. Yes, Box is in the name, but more importantly, so is Games. Games have always been what I’ve cared the most about. A game without a box is still a game. A box without a game is just a box.

 

Over the years I’ve offered my games a variety of ways. From stock boxes that I hand-wrapped in the early days, to hand pressed bags, tuck boxes, and fancy custom made boxes when I actually sold enough of a game to make the MOQ make sense. And then there’s everything in between. 17 years has given me a lot of time to experiment with a lot of different packaging ideas and approaches; trying to figure out what I can feasibly make domestically for a reasonable price. It’s tough. I’ll be trying a new box soon. It’s durable, it’s affordable. It’s not a tuck box. It’s also not a traditional game box, so I’m holding my breath on how it’ll be received.

 

For the majority of people who enjoy my games, the packaging for my games, while adequate and sometimes even nice, is secondary to what’s in the packaging. Sure, they have preferences, but they usually aren’t deal breakers. I’ve said I’m interested in growing Small Box Games, but in a space where most people don’t sleeve, where those who do sleeve think everyone sleeves, and where most people don’t care how a game will fit on their Ikea shelf, but those who do care won’t buy it if it doesn’t fit; it’s tough to find solid footing. My focus is on mechanics, card quality, and illustrations. I don’t really care that much about how my games look on a shelf; I care about what they look like on the table.

 

Sure, I do care a bit about their presentation. I care more about offering affordable, interesting games. I try to do what I think makes the most people the most happy: a box that’s just big enough for sleeved cards and rules. I don’t do inserts, so if a person doesn’t sleeve, it makes the box a bit more roomy than it should be. I’ve looked into inserts. Anything that the people who care about inserts would be happy with would price out pretty much all but my most loyal of customers. There’s an entire niche (within a niche) industry in games of companies selling nothing but secondary storage options for games. Carrying cases. Organizers. Inserts. Storage. Options exist for people who care about these things. Those companies can focus on storage, I’m going to focus on games.

​

Music for the Week: Beauty Queen - Out of Touch EP

​

​......................................................................................................................................................

​

The 500 x02 - Daily Specials

In another life, I would have been a chef. I love cooking. I still have misguided ideas of opening a food truck. Once, I was asked in an interview how much time it took me to make a game. My answer was: how long does it take to cook dinner? I think the tongue-in-cheekness of this response was lost a little bit; I couldn’t design a game in an hour. I meant that games, like meals, have different prep times.

 

Cooking for me is about figuring out how to make something taste like an idea I have in my head. I love figuring out the spices, ingredients, and cooking methods. Texture is almost as important as flavor. I usually only look at recipes to make sure I’m not overlooking a spice, or to get a refresher on cooking times. I can almost guarantee you, whatever recipe you’re looking at, there’s not enough garlic listed. Unless you’re my dad, who hates garlic, or a vampire.

 

And I get it; making food to bring joy to people I care about is different than running a restaurant chain. Should that make it any less satisfying?

 

I approach game design in a similar way: I’m trying to make a physical thing work the way I imagine it should work in my head. I’m never trying to make a linguini dish my own by swapping out the pasta and calling it new. Sure, I might glance at a recipe or look at what spices are traditionally used if it’s not something I’ve cooked with or eaten before. But copying a recipe and changing a few things? That wouldn’t bring me any joy.

 

There are people who will eat a hamburger wherever they dine. They know they like a hamburger, and that’s what they’re going to get. It doesn’t matter what the restaurant is known for, or the type of cuisine it offers: they’re having the burger. It may have the restaurant’s special spin on it or be vegan. But, it’s still a burger. The restaurant knows the burger will sell.

 

This isn’t a knock on hamburger people; we’re all comfortable with the familiar to some degree. There’s a wide spectrum between homo hamburgerus and Andrew Zimmern. Just like there’s a spectrum between those who enjoy Solitaire and others willing to jump headfirst into City of Six Moons.

 

I see industry professionals (designers/publishers) often espouse that games take a set amount of time to finish, you have to do things a particular way, and if you want to be successful, then you have to follow a certain checklist. I think that’s horseshit. Those ideas exist for a set, specific outcome and someone else’s idea of what success looks like. A chef’s pop-up won’t ever rival the weekend sales of a local Applebee’s. That doesn’t make the pop-up less successful.

 

Like cooking, I make games to create. Hopefully it’s something that brings joy to people. People that I’ll never meet. That doesn’t make it any less satisfying.

​

Music for the Week: The Undercover Dream Lovers - In Real Time EP

​

​......................................................................................................................................................

​

The 500 x01 - Positively Exhausted

My first entry for The 500 focused on how-to-play videos as an unofficial, yet somehow still required, checkmark for a game being considered done or worthy. While I do loathe being on the creator side of A/V stuff, I can’t quite wrap my head around this content’s actual relevance as a helpful consumable versus existing solely for marketing. What I wrote was more negative than I tend to be. So I shelved it. The idea for this blog-thing sat untouched for weeks while I figured out what I had to say, and how I wanted to say it.

 

I’ve spent the past 17 years living in a space that I built. I really like this space, as well as the people in it who helped me build it. I enjoy making games the way I make them, and I’ve said it so many times: SBG fans are the best in the hobby. But I wish that space was a bit bigger. If a few more people wanted to show up and hang out? That would be ok, too.

 

I make what I want, and for the most part, the people who buy my games like what they get. But I really want to grow. I want Small Box Games to be back on the same trajectory as 2017; as a potentially full time, viable thing for me. But, shit; things have really changed. Where I am now and where I want to be is a hard place to find in 2024; and I’ve been actively trying to build since 2019. I’m not looking for thousands of new fans; I’m looking for dozens. I don’t want to sell 10,000 copies of something; I’d be happy with 500. I want to love where I am with games, and right now, I don’t.

 

So, where does that leave me? I’m still trying to figure that out. With the types of games I make, it’s kind of hard to make advertising work with my games’ price and availability. There are some obvious things I could do, but doing those things potentially changes the scale of my company, and changing what makes SBG what it is at its core just isn’t something I’m interested in doing. I’m tired of being overly positive and being let down. I’m still positive; I’m just exhausted.

 

Aside from being something I genuinely want to do, The 500’s existence has some roots in marketing/exposure/whatever so that me, my games, and my company are potentially in the reader’s peripheral a little more often. But, it’s a bit more than that. I hope a lot more; it’s me being transparent about making games, my aspirations, and where I hope I exist as a maker. Is maker even the right word? I’d never label myself an artist. Artisan? Yeah, probably.

 

Will The 500 help steer more people into trying my games? I have no idea, but it’d be nice. Hopefully it’s at least interesting to the people who already enjoy what I make.

 

Music for the Week: L'Impératrice - Best Of